CASWELL HAZARD & CO. GINGER ALE NY Round bottom

[cowseatmaize]

Hi all I just picked up one of these on ebay. I can only recall seeing a handful of US round bottoms and have had a ball researching it. Caswell Hazard & Co seams to have been a large pharmicutical co with more than a few name changes and mergers. From what I can tell this would date between 1857-87 under this name. They also delved in medical intruments, tooth powders, lotions, perfumes and other stuff but couldn't find anything about soda. Could this be a medicinal ginger ale?
Also, how rare are round bottom US bottles? It's just aqua and I have seen an about cobalt Baltmore go for big bucks. I'm more than happy with what I'm paying but what do you think it's worth?
Thanks and I look forward to hearing what you think.

 

[Ginger Ale collector]

Hi Eric,

You've done some good research- your bottle is probably from the 1875-80's. The aqua Caswell Hazard is not one of the rarer American round bottom sodas. They also come in a greenish aqua which is harder to find. The aqua variety comes up at bottle shows fairly often. In the near mint condition yours seems to be, it is a $20-25 bottle on a show table. What might happen on the auction scene, well, you never know. I've seen super rare round bottom bottles go for a song, and then the common ones are through the roof. There are quite a few American round bottom bottles, many that are embossed ginger ale. Many had no embossing, just a paper label. You have to be careful about round bottom bottles with labels only. There are too many labels and plain round bottom bottles that get together that shouldn't be!

As far as not finding anything on Caswell Harzard selling ginger ale, that is unusal, as ginger ale was so popular in those days most bottlers and pharmacies (I think Caswell Harzard did have a storefront in NYC) always promoted their ginger ale. And Caswell Hazard was, as you pointed out, actually quite a big company, even for those days. They sold products everywhere they could. That's why diggers find Caswell Harzard item in many parts of the country. Ginger ale had a lot of reputations, but the primary one was not medicinal. However, because it was made with real ginger it did have medicinal benefits for the digestion.

Ken

 

[cowseatmaize]

Thanks for the update Ken.
I was a little off though. They were Hazard Caswell from 1857-?, then in the early 1880's to about 1887 were Caswell Hazard & Co. A bit if dislexia goes a long way. I wish it was a Newport RI address so Little Rhody bottle club could add it to their list. Their site gave me a lot of the info so a big thanks to them as well.
Little Rhody bottle club
I'd have paid $20 at a show just for the fun of researching.

 

[Andrewt]

I just bought a Caswell Mack & Co in cobalt is it rarer or.... Thank you in advance!!

 

[surfaceone]

Hey Andrew,

Got photos?

An interesting Court case.

Little Rhody.

 

[Andrewt]

Re: RE: CASWELL HAZARD & CO. GINGER ALE NY Round bottom

Thank you for the info! I'll dig it out and take some, so are the ones with the Mack embossing less common?